


i'll still destroy you

by oceanhearted



Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Ambiguous Relationships, Childhood Friends, Emetophobia, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, if you see me projecting onto these two men. no you don't, the kenstew brainrot is real because this is the most productive i've ever been with fic writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-13 09:01:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29399457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceanhearted/pseuds/oceanhearted
Summary: “Just leave me to die here, then,” Kendall’s overdose-addled mind is loose lipped, and he mutters into the toilet bowl quietly. Stewy falls a little too silent, stays a little too still for a little too long before he responds.“Don't fucking say that, man,” he says, and his voice is low, too earnest for anyone else to ever believe that it could’ve come from Stewy, as if he didn’t mean to be heard nor taken to heart, and Kendall does hear it but he's too fucked up to respond anyway, so he takes it as it is; he takes the way Stewy crouches next to him and rubs circles into his back as he continues to retch his innards into the bowl, gripping onto its sides for his dear life, a moment of clarity striking him—for all he knows, this could be his final thoughts, really—and he thinks to himself,how nice this feels even if I were to die right now.Kendall keeps waiting for the day Stewy leaves. (Five times Stewy stays by Kendall's side; one time...)
Relationships: Stewy Hosseini/Kendall Roy
Kudos: 26





	i'll still destroy you

**Author's Note:**

> spoilers up until s02e01; check tags for content warnings, although they're not particularly explicit. jesse armstrong teach me how to write succession dialogue challenge pt. 2
> 
> title from [i'll still destroy you by the national](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPp-3QSXf1g). i just think kenstew and the national are neat together.

_I have no positions  
_ _No point of view or vision  
_ _I'm just trying to stay in touch with  
_ _Anything I'm still in touch with_

 _The sky's getting white  
_ _I can't find a lighter anywhere I'm going crazy  
_ _But I'm not crazy  
_ _Put your heels against the wall_  
 _I swear you got a little bit taller since I saw you  
_ _I'll still destroy you_

I.

It starts like this: Kendall, eight years old, gets jealous over a spanking new cap the boy next to him is wearing. Because the Roy thinks he’s entitled to everything under the sun, as a Roy does (that, and he’s an eight-year-old), he takes the cap for himself during recess, something that doesn’t fly by his deskmate, because of course it doesn’t. When dared to take it back, Kendall knows the other boy doesn’t have a lick of strength in his arms to, but what he does come to find out is that he’s got a tongue sharp enough to make up for it, at least, as sharp as an eight-year-old’s tongue can be; he goes “fuck you”, Kendall, taken aback, sputters back “fuck you too”, their teacher stops dead mid-sentence and her eyes go so wide they bulge out of her face, and the next thing they know the both of them are squatting outside the principal’s office after a very stern talking-to and waiting for a parent to take them home.

“My dad’s gonna kill me when he finds out,” Kendall mumbles under his breath, and the other boy stares at him curiously, head tilting to one side, dumb cap tilting along with it.

“Me too. Let’s tell them the other person started it.” 

“You did start it. But how does that help?”

“Fuck you, you did,” the other boy spits back, “I’m gonna tell my dad you dished it but couldn’t take it so you bitched back and got us both in trouble. I don’t care if you steal my idea. At least it makes you look less like a pussy than you already are.”

“Fuck you, that’s lying. And your part isn’t even true.”

“Fuck you, it’s true, and I don’t have you lie, you do. Anyway, it works. I’m trying to be nice here.” 

Kendall frowns, and because his eight-year-old ego is too big to say _thank you_ or _sorry_ to the other boy, he goes, “Fuck you.” But then he thinks for a moment and decides to stick his hand out. “I’m Kendall Roy.”

The other boy snorts, but takes his hand. “Okay, _Kendall Roy._ I’m just Stewy.”

Stewy’s ride comes first. She doesn’t look like a direct relative of Stewy’s, judging by the way Stewy dances around the attendant, dumping his bags at her feet without a care in the world as she fusses and picks up after him, careful to maintain an air of formality throughout. Kendall sinks a little into his seat; he doesn’t think that, no, he knows that no-one would be coming for him for awhile, and he kicks his legs around to stop trembling and bites down on his lower lip. Vaguely he senses Stewy hanging back, staring at Kendall, but he’s too ashamed to look back at him, undeniably waiting to make fun of him, until Stewy finally decides to speak up.

“Hey, can we send Ken home, too?”

II.

“Hey, wake up. You look like a hobo.”

Kendall jolts awake, bumping his head atop the bleacher plank hovering above their heads, groaning as he finds Stewy who, crouched in front of him, doesn’t hold back in cackling at his misfortune.

“Wait, how—how did you find me?” Kendall sputters out, immediately realising what an idiotic question he’d asked by the way Stewy raises his eyebrows at him in return.

“Are you really asking me how I’m finding you in _our hiding place,_ dude?” Stewy grins at him, as vicious as a merciless thirteen-year-old can get in their time, and Kendall would be utterly pissed at him if he isn’t completely embarrassed at his being cramped under their school bleachers, dim and stuffy and not even remotely comfortable of a secret rendezvous, which is what warded off most of the other kids. “But anyway, are you gonna tell me why you’ve fucked off since gym without me? _Kendall Roy,_ skipping class, and _not because I made you do it?_ Oh, how you hurt me so.”

“Fuck off, you’re not in class right now either,” Kendall grumbles, but the strain in his words doesn’t go past Stewy, ever-so perceptive when it comes to Kendall, he doesn’t even know why he bothers trying to hide it.

“Why are you making your face look like a prune? Don’t tell me you hurt yourself,” Stewy tilts his head from side to side exaggeratedly, examining Kendall before his eyes land on Kendall’s ankle, monstrously swollen from an unattended sprain, sans Kendall having removed his footwear to lessen the pain, and his jaw drops in an ever-dramatic show of surprise. “Holy shit, your foot looks like a fuckin’... like one of those tumours that grow teeth and hair and shit on them. Can I touch it?”

“Shut the fuck up, Stewy,” he’s sure his lack of retort, and the way his voice wobbles as he attempts to cuss out the other boy, doesn’t make it past his friend, either. But Kendall did in fact fuck up his ankle during their gym class, and he has in fact chosen to hobble into a corner since the end it to stay quiet about it, which must’ve been… at least a couple of hours ago.

“Why the fuck didn’t you say something earlier? Did you seriously just come here to hide? What were you gonna do when the last bell rang and you stranded yourself here if I didn’t find you? Seriously, what kind of backward-ass logic are you on?” 

“I don’t know,” Kendall mumbles, and now he’s biting down on his lower lip to stop it from trembling, hoping the pain would counteract the stinging in his eyes. “I don’t fucking know, Stewy, seriously, if you’re gonna keep that shit up, just fucking, fuck off and leave me alone, or something.”

He’d hoped to slew enough vulgarities to get Stewy to, well, _fuck off_ , but Kendall in pain is not particularly verbose, and Stewy is half of Kendall’s pain, anyway. His friend gives him a long stare, but says nothing more about Kendall’s actions, which Kendall is immediately grateful for; it’s not something Stewy needs to push.

“You know I’m not gonna do that. Can you get out of there? I’ll help you get to the nurse.”

Reluctantly, Kendall crawls out from underneath the bleachers, discarded sock and shoe in one hand, wincing as he drags his swollen foot behind him. His friend basically has to strongarm him up to his feet; he doesn’t miss the way Stewy winces away from him when he drags Kendall up and slings Kendall’s arm over his shoulder, however, and having Kendall lean into Stewy’s side in a proximity that has Kendall suddenly and unnaturally nervous about.

“Um, are you okay, dude?” Kendall can’t stop himself from asking his friend, as they slowly hobble towards their school infirmary, Stewy walking more gingerly than he usually would, even with an injured Kendall at tow. “Did you strain yourself at gym, too?”

“Nah, bro. I just—uh,” it’s not very often Stewy’s lost for words, “I fell on my side at home.”

Kendall frowns, but it’s not something he needs to push, either.

“I can take you to the nurse for that.”

“Shut the fuck up, Ken.”

III.

Kendall has Stewy on his second speed dial (out of the only two registered numbers, that is). The first has and will always be reserved for his father, as neglected as it goes, and he gets more than enough of his siblings on a daily basis for them to even warrant a place on it. Having his friend on speed dial has proven to be one of Kendall’s more genius ideas, because he knows by now that 1. Stewy always picks up his calls within five rings, and 2. Stewy is always down to clown, no matter where and when. (He’s also done more than he can count on his father for during actual emergencies, not that there’s ever been a situation that was considered as much, and not that he’s in one now, but Kendall digresses.) This time, at least one of those numbered points doesn’t prove any different, but it unravels faster than Kendall realised it would.

“Dude, what the _fuck,”_ Stewy’s voice is low and gravelling, which somehow catches Kendall completely offguard for a moment, for reasons he won’t immediately attempt to discern (his chest is tight enough, already), “you realise it is ass o’clock in the morning right now?”

Ass o’clock in the morning being about four in the morning, but Kendall hadn’t thought Stewy to be the dead asleep during this hour kind, especially when it’s their school break. His chest constricts even more with the pang of guilt that strikes him, and he almost reconsiders, _almost,_ before persevering, because he doesn’t quite know what else he should be doing at ass o’clock in the morning that’s not waking Stewy from his sleep.

“I’m outside your house,” Kendall answers, as casually as he can, and he hears another low _are you fucking serious_ from the other end of the line, “let me in, you dipshit, it’s freezing out here.”

If he knew Stewy well enough, and he does, he would say that Stewy’s temper is being held together by a single, but ever-so sturdy, thread. “Back door, fuckwad.”

“Way ahead of you,” he replies, but the dial tone cuts him off prematurely.

He’s not sure how long Stewy leaves him to shuffle about his feet in the cold, but the death glare his friend gives him when the back door finally creaks open tells him it’s absolutely intentional and absolutely deserved. His nightshirt looks dishevelled and hastily thrown on, his curls still presentable despite the rude awakening Kendall’s given him, and his expression is… cold, not particularly down to clown, much less anything else. Kendall attempts a sincere smile (which he knows comes off awkward at best), which is his way of saying _thank you_ and _sorry_ without further throttling the dead puppy that is his ego as he tries to sidestep his friend into the house, but Stewy leans forward to obstruct the entire doorway and stops Kendall mid-step.

“You better have a really good fucking reason why you’re here, cumrag, and daddy issues isn’t gonna cut it this time.”

Kendall visibly jolts at his accusation; Stewy knows him too well for his own good, so he doesn’t bother attempting to dignify it with a response, or an insult, or even a _that’s too far, man_. “I have vodka,” he tries instead, a peace offering, and Stewy scoffs at him.

“Yeah, and I know where my folks keep the good shit, not your B-tier shoe polish. You’ve uh, got two more chances before I break your twig legs and leave you writhing for the early birds.”

Kendall doesn’t know what else to say, so he stares down at his feet until he hears a long sigh and sees Stewy’s shadow move to the side. Kendall gives him a vague nod, avoiding his friend’s eyes as he slips into the house.

For someone of their stature, the Hosseini household is humbler than most, although he supposes that his point of comparison can’t quite be considered _most._ Kendall makes a silent beeline to Stewy’s room, easy not to make a sound seeing how he knew the house as well as the back of his hand, what with countless previous intrusions that come with high school science projects, double delegation Model United Nations training and and exam season cram (read: fucking about) sessions. Stewy trudges slowly after him, as if he’s the one who needs to be led by the hand.

Stewy’s room is sparse and organised, rather unexpectedly to Kendall the first time he had come over; not minimalist, per se, but he’s never been one for pointless luxuries, only practicalities and the occasional odd memento here and there, for the novelty and not the attachment. Stewy shoves him rather unkindly from behind (granted he was obstructing the doorway), shuts his bedroom door with the grace of a saint, then whips around to glare at Kendall, the best his lethargic self is able to do so, which still makes Kendall tense his shoulders uncomfortably. 

“Look, I’m not sure what your grade school sleepover plans are, but I am going the fuck back to sleep so I don’t get scrotum eyebags like you, you can do whatever the fuck you want, just make sure you’re quiet and you fuck off before the sun comes up, I don’t need to give my family more reasons to suspect that I’m a fag,” ever the one for theatrics, he pauses dramatically, as if this is supposed to be a grand revelation to Kendall (it isn’t), “which I am, but, I’m not, as far as they’re concerned. Well then,” Stewy unceremoniously throws himself onto his bed, burying his face into his pillow and effectively shutting out his friend.

Kendall stares at Stewy, finding himself rather uncomfortable with himself and where he is, and how Stewy practically doesn’t give a fuck about his being here. Now that Kendall’s actually here, he’s not quite sure what he expected to be doing here, much less what exactly he _wants_ to be doing here, now—well, he had felt suffocated in his home, wanted an out from it and everything it held over his head, and then he had only thought to escape to Stewy’s—truth be told, he didn’t even think he would get to this point, didn’t think with all the frustration his friend was expressing towards him he would still end up watching his friend attempting to return to sleep in front of him. He didn’t think he could go home, yet. 

(He still wants to ask for more.)

So he sets his bag and coat down onto the bedroom floor, inches himself low next to Stewy’s bed, and nudges him carefully. “Hey. Move over.”

Stewy lets out a drawled-out groan that’s muffled by his pillow. “How are you becoming the worst booty call of my life. The shit you’re putting me through is _unreal_ right now, you know that?"

Oh, he's definitely painfully aware of how purposefully aggravating this is for Stewy, he would retort any other day, but it's a little too real for him right now. “C’mon, Stewy. Please.”

Stewy makes sure his sigh is audible and guilt-inducing enough for Kendall to feel the earnest sting of it, but he still rolls over to make room on his bed, lying on his back. Kendall quietly slips under the sheets, careful not to take up anymore than what's left of Stewy’s hogging, a small gesture to make up for his intrusion. It’s a tight fit for two teenage boys who haven’t reached the height of their growth spurts, and Kendall finds it difficult to avoid making any sort of contact with his friend that isn't, well, _weird;_ in fact he's suddenly dreadfully aware of his proximity to the other boy, which makes his heart rattle against his ribcage in a way he realises he's never quite felt before, has him hyper-conscious of how his breath carried itself in the small room.

"Are we good, man?" Kendall asks, into the darkness, to the still silhouette of his best friend, because further down from being a Roy _(because_ he is a Roy) he is, and always will be, a little insecure with what he has with Stewy, whatever it is, whatever way he finds himself continuously straining it somehow, testing him.

There's a long silence; either Stewy's fallen asleep or is committed to giving him a literal cold shoulder for the rest of the night, but Kendall's close to slipping out and beating it back home, pretending that none of this ever happened, hoping to pretend as much whenever they were to meet again.

And then, in a low voice, "We're good, Ken."

Kendall sighs, lets out a breath he didn't realise he was holding. Gingerly, he leans his forehead against Stewy's shoulder; there's no way Stewy doesn't notice, but if he chooses to say anything, Kendall's heart vertebrates so loudly in his ears that it's drowned out completely. But his friend doesn't do anything to shrug him off either, so Kendall closes his eyes, taking in the moment, not worrying about what he'll do to get home before he's noticed in the morning, willing the moment to last a little longer than he can stay awake for.

IV.

“C’mon, Kendall. Work it out. You’re fine.”

The moment is, with all things considered, inevitable, but it doesn’t make it any less terrifying, or, in Kendall’s case, more mortifying than anything else, really. He really, really wish Stewy wasn’t seeing him like this, much less having to be the one to drag them across their dorm and into their shitty shared toilets, holding him over a bowl and hoping that no-one else came across them as he made Kendall force out whatever concoction is the one to nearly drive him over the edge for good. Kendall is a sweaty, and heaving, and fucking disgusting heir apparent of the Roy conglomerate right now, and he really doesn’t know how this of all things has made Stewy the most patient motherfucker to grace the halls of Harvard to be dealing with his ass.

“Why are you doing this,” Kendall asks, though it comes off less like a question and more like a pathetic groan that vertebrates back into his ears from the porcelain filled with absolute rank below him.

“Are you fucking kidding me, dude? Sure, you deserve it for breaking into my stash, but I’m not letting you fucking croak on my watch, it’s— _lame,”_ there’s a lilt in Stewy’s voice that registers in Kendall’s fogged mind as a forced attempt at humour, his friend’s version of being scared shitless. What’s lamer is the way Kendall had begged Stewy not to have him immediately checked into the nearest hospital, not because he could, uh, fucking _die,_ not even because Harvard would’ve been on his ass before he got his stomach pumped, but because he didn’t want a single word to ever reach _daddy dearest;_ then again, Stewy had been just as lame to agree to his grovelling, god knows if he were any less smarter than he was to end up in the same situation he would be doing the exact same thing. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’d be hilarious if you had to be sent home covered in your own puke and piss, but do I really wanna be known as the guy who got his druggie friend kicked from Harvard soaked in his own puke and shit for the rest of my life?”

“Just leave me to die here, then,” Kendall’s overdose-addled mind is loose lipped, and he mutters into the toilet bowl quietly. Stewy falls a little too silent, stays a little too still for a little too long before he responds.

“Don't fucking say that, man,” he says, and his voice is low, too earnest for anyone else to ever believe that it could’ve come from Stewy, as if he didn’t mean to be heard nor taken to heart, and Kendall does hear it but he's too fucked up to respond anyway, so he takes it as it is; he takes the way Stewy crouches next to him and rubs circles into his back as he continues to retch his innards into the bowl, gripping onto its sides for his dear life, a moment of clarity striking him—for all he knows, this could be his final thoughts, really—and he thinks to himself, _how nice this feels even if I were to die right now._

V.

“I don’t know, dude, what if I, what if I fuck this up like I’ve fucked everything else up? What if I can’t do it? What if he, what if he has something else up his sleeve?”

“Hey, Ken, c’mon, we’ve worked this out,” Stewy sits across him, staring him straight in his eyes, and Kendall’s breath catches in his chest, heart lodges itself between his ribcage. “I’ve listened to you go on and on about your dad kicking you in the ribs for sport since we met. I’ve held your hair back while you puked your fucking guts out, and even that didn’t match up to the amount of shit your old man’s had you wade through. As far as I’m concerned, this is basically your God-given right. You got this. _We_ got this,” and his friend reaches out and holds Kendall’s hand in his own, gives it a tight squeeze, says everything he needs to in what otherwise amounts to a meaningless gesture; Stewy’s always been concise and direct that way, after all. “Just like old times, yeah?”

And for once, Kendall deigns himself to believe it. Kendall believes in Stewy. Kendall believes in _himself._

He squeezes back.

I.

Stewy’s still in disbelief when he finally gets to see Kendall in the flesh again. He’s sullen, and stoned-face, and withdrawn, refusing to meet Stewy’s gaze, little to no credit to be attributed to any drug-related symptoms he might be experiencing, Stewy knows this.

Now, he knows Kendall, too. Not the cocksuck who pretends he can be cutthroat whenever he damn well pleases, but the one who’s desperate for people not to look right through him. He’s seen Kendall through his absolute fucking worst moments, the way his family should’ve been the ones to bring him through; he knows just about every dirty little secret Kendall kept close to himself—the same way he knew Stewy’s own; the same way Kendall had kept mum or took credit for the bruises Stewy came to school with so no-one else would fuss over him, the same way Kendall never once rightfully blamed Stewy for leading him into a crippling addiction that’s ruined so much of his life, and stands to ruin so much more of it.

So the man in front of him? He knows this isn’t Kendall in the worst of his coke binges, or however many ways his fucked up brain chose to rear its ugly head to the world around him. He knows, without a fraction of a doubt, that there’s something else behind all of it— _someone_ else behind all of it. In fact, he knows there’s one Logan Roy pulling the strings behind his pathetic, useless, cowardly joints, even more pathetic, useless, and cowardly to not show his face to Stewy so he could—he could— _do something_ . He knows this isn’t _Kendall_ at all, and he wants so badly to snap him out of whatever trance his father’s got him in this time.

“There’s a friend card here if you wanna play it, you know that, right? You can talk to me.” 

He wants so badly for Kendall to take it, to tell him exactly what it is that his father’s holding over his head, his life. Whatever it is that has Kendall leashed to the back of a shed, whatever has him complacent, waiting for the gun pointed against his head to go off, the trigger so delicately tethered by Logan Roy himself.

“We had the whole world in our hands and you fucking walked, man. Why?”

But Kendall doesn’t give him anything. Maybe he can’t, but it doesn’t matter, because he still fucking _doesn’t,_ and it still fucking _hurts,_ because he _knows Kendall knows_ he’d give anything to do _something,_ it never mattered what it was, it didn’t matter what it is, even now.

But in the end, after everything, Kendall turns, and he leaves.

**Author's Note:**

> talk to me about succession! @themeyerowitzstories on tumblr


End file.
